German MP: EU Has To Clearly Say It’s Not Negotiating, but Setting Conditions for Membership

Josip Juratovic (Beta/Milos Miskov)

A member of the German Bundestag, Josip Juratovic, has said that the new German cabinet wishes to strengthen democracy within the EU, and also outside of the Union, which also refers to the Western Balkans.

The approach of the new government in Berlin was to increase engagement in strengthening democracy through civil society organizations, but also through all democratic structures which existed in all parties, but could not come to the forefront as their parties were autocratic, Juratovic said in a lecture titled the FR of Germany New Policy in Southeastern Europe.

During the lecture, organized by the Ljubljana-based International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES), Juratovic reproached the former German cabinet for too much pursuing the policy of “stabilitocracy” and less the policy of true democracy in the Western Balkans.

Juratovic, an MP of the ruling Social Democratic Party, stressed that the EU had to honestly say that it was not negotiating, but rather setting conditions for membership, while the Western Balkans had to say whether they wanted that, portal EurActiv Srbija reported in the evening on April 11.

In regard to the Western Balkans, the EU, according to Juratovic, has to clearly say that it wants these countries in the Union. He stressed that the EU had been for 19 years telling the Western Balkans they had a future in the EU, but then Brussels officials would go there and make “a theatrical performance.” It was very important that also Slovenia and Croatia increased their engagement, Juratovic said in Ljubljana.